2010 NH Outside Calendar Available Now

Our beautiful 2010 NH Outside calendar is now available. The calendar contains excerpts from published NH Outside columns, illustrated with original artwork by volunteer artists and spiced with daily tips and tidbits to help increase awareness of the natural world.

Our tagline, connecting you with the wisdom and wonder of the natural world, reflects the purpose of our collaborative writing project: to connect readers to nature in some concrete, meaningful way.

We recruit volunteer writers with a passion for the natural world and offer training, professional editing, and ongoing support in exchange for their written work. Most of their essays reflect on a private experience or encounter with the world just outside their doorways.

Every week we distribute a new essay to print media statewide and publish it to our NH Outside Web page.

The 2008 and 2009 calendars both won first-place awards from the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE), an international association of communicators and information technologists.

We think you'll find this year's edition every bit as gorgeous and useful as the first two. At $9.00 each, we expect the calendars to disappear quickly

Order online now.

Preserving Old Barns

Ever wonder about the history of the many barns along New Hampshire’s scenic byways? Or how you might restore the barn sitting in your backyard? A unique resource on preserving old barns is available in an illustrated book featuring many of New Hampshire’s historic and scenic barns. You will find “Preserving Old Barns” not only offers a history of New England agriculture through the evolution of barns, it also deals with structural renovation of deteriorating farm buildings.This book will help barn owners assess the structural integrity of old farm buildings, as well as provide instructions for some basic repairs.

Authors John Porter, a UNH Cooperative Extension dairy specialist emeritus, and Francis Gilman, retired agricultural engineer specialist with UNH Cooperative Extension, have spent their careers with farmers around New England helping them update and retrofit barns and have applied this knowledge to the renovation of old barns. Together they have more than 50 years of field experience working with agricultural producers. “Preserving Old Barns” is a fully illustrated book. Photos and sketches on every page provide clear examples of the concepts presented. A special colored section showcases more than a dozen beautifully restored barns.

Order online now. Cost is $19.95

New! Integrated Landscaping: Following Nature’s Lead
 
Integrated Landscaping: Following Nature’s Lead is a new publication for New Hampshire and other gardeners, landscapers, contractors, businesses and municipalities in the Northeast that want to create beautiful, functional landscapes based on natural ecosystems.

Integrated Landscaping: Following Nature’s Lead is a fully illustrated book. Photos, drawings, and sketches on almost every page provide clear examples of the concepts presented.

Most landscape manuals describe a linear sequence of processes: design, plant selection, installation, and ongoing maintenance. Integrated Landscaping offers a holistic approach that addresses these processes simultaneously. This new way of thinking treats each site as a system of plant and animal communities, considering their interrelationships to each other and their environment.

This manual will help New Hampshire and other landscapers working in the Northeast on either existing or new sites to:

• Establish landscapes that look and feel as if they belong here.
• Integrate natural principles into beautiful, functional landscapes.
• Create landscapes that sustain themselves with minimum cost, energy, and effort.
• Think in terms of plant systems, rather than mere collections of individual plants.
• Use and apply plant-system models designed for challenging conditions.
• Find alternatives to invasive species that offer the aesthetic characteristics they provide.
• Create landscapes that benefit wildlife, both above and below ground.

The extensive appendices provide further information on all topics presented along with plant selection charts and lists.
Cost is $19.95, plus shipping and handling, for a total of $24. Click here for the order form. Payable to UNH Cooperative Extension and mail to: UNH Cooperative Extension Publications Center, Nesmith Hall, 131 Main St., Durham, NH 03824.

Landscaping at the Water’s Edge: An Ecological Approach
A Manual for NH Landowners and Landscapers Now Available

No matter where you live in New Hampshire, the actions you take in your landscape can have far reaching effects on water quality. Why? Because we are all connected to the water cycle and we all live in a watershed, the land area that drains into a surface water body such as a lake, river, or wetland.

“Landscaping at the Water’s Edge: An Ecological Approach” is a new publication for New Hampshire landowners and landscapers that will explain how our landscaping choices impact surface and ground waters and demonstrates how, with simple observations, ecologically-based design and low impact maintenance practices, you can protect, and even improve, the quality of our water resources.

Authors are UNH Cooperative Extension specialists and educators with expertise in horticulture, water resources, turf grass, entomology, planting and maintaining landscapes and home lawn care. These educators partnered with a sustainable and ecological designer and other experts united to provide information and expertise to help landscapers and property owners living along New Hampshire’s lakes, ponds, rivers and streams make decisions about landscape design and maintenance that will reduce pollution and environmental degradation.

“Landscaping at the Water’s Edge: An Ecological Approach” is a fully illustrated book. Photos and sketches on almost every page provide clear examples of the concepts presented. The appendices carry extensive information pertinent to state regulations, along with recommended plant lists and other resources.
             
Cost is $20. Click here for the order form. Payable to UNH Cooperative Extension and mail to: UNH Cooperative Extension Publications Center, Nesmith Hall, 131 Main St., Durham, NH 03824.

• Lively, easy-to-read text and useful charts
• Pen and ink illustrations, and black & white photos of selected plants
• Sections on plant selection and care
• Specialty plant lists and an index for easy referencing

Written by Cathy Neal and Margaret Hagen of UNH Cooperative Extension, along with Leslie van Berkum of van Berkum Nurseries, this book is published by the New Hampshire Plant Growers' Association in cooperation with UNH Cooperative Extension.

Click here for the order form. Payable to UNH Cooperative Extension and mail to: UNH Cooperative Extension Publications Center, Nesmith Hall, 131 Main St., Durham, NH 03824.